Between relatively mundane courses, Copper State Dinner Theatre is serving up a delectable comedy called I Hate Hamlet. This amusing morsel had a colorful run on Broadway in 1991 for 80 performances, but is remembered mainly for the disgraceful behavior of Nicol Williamson. Playing the role of John Barrymore to…
Godspell has been a source of both controversy and inspiration since its first production in 1971. It was written in reaction to a lethargic Anglican church. John-Michael Tebelak, then a drama student at Carnegie Tech’s School of Drama, created the musical as an attempt “to weave God’s spell over the…
Country living is often idealized in the movies, but director Michael Blakemore’s Country Life is about the price of the so-called simple life. The setting is Australia in 1919–just as the lads are returning from the Great War–and cinematographer Stephen Windon captures the outback in ravishing, warm yellows. The rewards…
The word “tantalize” comes from the Greek myth of Tantalus, who tried to trick the gods into committing cannibalism. The gods apparently regarded this a fairly serious sin on his part, for they devised a horrid punishment for Tantalus in the underworld. He was placed in a pool of water…
Maria’s When in Naples, 7000 East Shea, Scottsdale Promenade, Scottsdale, 991-6887. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Dinner, 5 to 10 p.m., seven days a week. Some things in life can make me happy out of all proportion to the tangible benefits they actually confer. Could…
Retail Roundup: You can judge a city’s sophistication by its museums, symphony, theatre, libraries and professional sports franchises. But the variety of its retail food outlets is a pretty sure-fire measure of status, as well. By that standard, Phoenix is definitely headed in the right direction. Three new stores show…
Memo to: Terry Hardin, KZON-FM general manager Re: The Zone’s crossover to a Rock Alternative format, our conversations on the same, KEDJ’s response, and other assorted strangeness cc: Coda readers Terry– I’ve got a question for you: Ever heard of this powerhouse FM station in Denver called “The Peak”? Call…
From Adderly to Zappa, George Duke’s biography reads like road notes from a cross-country tour of American popular music. His trek began as a child in northern California, where he studied classical and jazz and became proficient on piano, trombone and bass. Playing in a Baptist church gave his sensibilities…
Beer, weed, girlies and greed. That’s what little Phunk Junkeez are made of. In five years, the locally grown punk-hop act has graduated from a series of infamous break-and-enter warehouse concerts to touring the nation on corporate money. “Trauma/Interscope treats us great,” says the PJ rapper Soulman in a phone…
When most slackers get sick, they lie in bed hoping for codeine. Soul Coughing spits up a song. “Super Bon Bon,” for example, was spawned by an allergic reaction. “I threw this sneeze across the room,” says keyboardist/sample maestro M’ark De Gili Antoni, “and all of a sudden we were…
The most important theatre event of this decade, Tony Kushner’s epic masterpiece Angels in America, has arrived in Phoenix. It is the largest and deepest play since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? hit Broadway in 1962, and joins A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman and A Long Day’s…
Contrary to what you hear from the official press, the odds are reasonably high that J. Fife Symington III will be media deep-fried and resigned from office well before his gubernatorial term ends in 1999. By filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, Symington has stepped onto a tightrope strung over a…
They’re Good Kindling, Too The boys at Rural/Metro Fire Corporation were not pleased with New Times’ August 17 story about their handling of the 20,000-acre Rio fire. Soon after the issue containing Michael Kiefer’s cover story, “The Souring Inferno,” hit the streets, racks in several northeast Valley locations were stripped…
Hey, I’ve always said that good things come in pairs, right? So I was wrong. I went to the recent grand opening (oy–finally!) of the Valley’s third Hooters restaurant. Or is it a sports bar? Or maybe just a place where a man can relax with his buddies, down a…
Remember Jim Bruner? He chaired the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and cast the deciding vote in February 1994 to impose a $238 million sales tax to build Jerry Colangelo’s palatial baseball stadium. Seven months later, the heavily favored Bruner was drubbed in his bid to gain the Republican nomination…
On September 18, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Susan Bolton quietly dismissed criminal charges against Lorne Shantz, the state Department of Public Safety cop accused of knowingly distributing pornography through his computer bulletin board, the Wish Book. For months, Shantz had endured the cool stares of his neighbors, the pressure…
In January 1993, James Elmer McPheeters was sentenced to six lifetimes in prison for sexual exploitation of a minor. McPheeters owned a collection of 30 dirty magazines, two videos and a deck of obscene playing cards, all depicting children in a sexual context, and each of those items earned him…
On a Monday morning, Rene Diaz is standing outside the corner office reserved for the superintendent in the Phoenix Union district headquarters, conferring with Shirley, his secretary. She relentlessly directs and polices his schedule, which inevitably includes more than there is time for. He’s a busy man. He’s got a…
The actor’s nightmare is of performing in a play for which he has no memory of rehearsing or learning lines. For a movie director, the equivalent nightmare must be presiding over a set on which every imaginable disaster occurs, while attempting to shoot a difficult scene on a tight schedule…
The task of writing about the Grateful Dead phenomenon has fallen mainly either to Deadheads, who obviously lack objectivity, or to rock critics, who love to scratch their heads elaborately over the question of why a cult would grow up around this band’s pleasant if somewhat forgettable music. This question…
You have wondered, perhaps, while watching footage of the Paris fashion shows, just where in God’s name the designers got the inspiration for their ill-conceived Halloween costumes. Director Douglas Keeve’s new documentary Unzipped gives us the answer: Nanook of the North. The subject of the film, renowned New York fashion…
One of the questions I’m most frequently asked by friends and fellow foodies is where I eat when I dine out. The truth is I seldom have the opportunity to try different restaurants. Not that I don’t enjoy dining out–I love it! But with Vincent’s open six or seven days…
